Last year, Sen. Ted Cruz, his father Rafael Cruz, and two of his then-rivals in the Republican presidential race attended a “religious liberty” conference in Iowa hosted by Kevin Swanson, a radical pastor who had a long record of viciously anti-gay rhetoric, which he continued at the conference itself by expounding at length about his view that the Bible commands governments to put gay people to death.

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A few days before the conference, CNN’s Jake Tapper read Cruz a few of Swanson’s statements and asked him about the wisdom of appearing alongside Swanson. Cruz claimed ignorance about Swanson and then dodged the question.

He then joined Swanson for one-on-one discussion on the same stage that Swanson used to go on unhinged rants about gay people, Harry Potter and wildfires.

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Then, finally, one full month after Swanson’s conference, a Cruz spokesman quietly told USA Today that “it was a mistake for Senator Cruz to appear at the event” given Swanson’s “offensive comments.”

But that is not the story that Cruz told the “John and Ken Show,” a California talk radio program, when he was asked about his attendance at the conference yesterday. Instead, Cruz claimed that he was unaware of Swanson’s views before attending and falsely asserted that he “denounced them at the time,” once he learned about them.

“He was an individual I didn’t know, I’d never met him,” Cruz said of Swanson. “I went to a conference on religious liberty because it is an issue I care very much about. After the conference, his comments were drawn to my attention and I denounced them at the time, I think they're wrong, I totally disagree with them. I didn’t know this fellow and when I saw what he said, I came out publicly and said I disagree with what he’s saying.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-tries-rewrite-history-claims-he-denounced-radical-kill-gays-pastor

Pope will replace American ambassador who arranged meeting with Kim Davis

After Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican ambassador to the United States, invited renegade Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis to his residence for an audience with the Pope, many progressives and LGBTQ people reacted with outrage. Pope Francis, known for his softer stance on LGBTQ rights and outreach to the less fortunate, came under fire for associating with the reviled government official who went to jail rather than issue a marriage license to same-sex couples.

Many Vatican watchers expected the Pope to quietly replace Viganò when he reached the statutory retirement age. Church law allows the Pope to decline the mandatory resignation, but he has reportedly accepted the Archbishop’s. A hardline conservative, Viganò was considered a hurdle to Pope Francis‘ vision of a more welcoming and tolerant church.

Viganò will be replaced by Archbishop Christophe Pierre according to the Washington Post. Pierre currently serves as the Vatican‘s ambassador to Mexico and has served as a diplomat at various posts around the world.
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/03/pope-will-replace-american-ambassador-who-arranged-meeting-with-kim-davis/

Scientists have been scrambling to assess the mortality of the roosting Monarch butterfly population in Michoacán, Mexico, following a freak March 11 winter snowstorm that dropped temperatures to sub freezing and included wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour in the butterflies’ ancestral roosting sites. For now, the estimates of how much of the migrating Monarch butterfly population perished are at best an educated guess.



“I have no new information. We are ‘in limbo,’” said Dr. Chip Taylor, founder of Monarch Watch, the citizen science organization based at the University of Kansas that tags the butterflies each fall to track their migration.

Dr. Lincoln Brower has been working long distance from his home in Sweet Briar, Virginia, with a team of scientists on the ground in the 10,000-foot-tall plus mountains northwest of Mexico City where the butterflies roost each fall. They’ve been gathering data, reviewing climatology information, making observations, and reviewing photos and historical accounts of a previous freeze in 2002.

“It’s been difficult and there are conflicting reports as you know,” said Dr. Brower via email, referring to Mexican tourism officials downplaying the severity of the situation. Soon after news of the storm broke, Mexican officials claimed that only 3% of the butterflies had been affected–about 1.5 million of the estimated 200 million roosting.

“The climate data we have suggest about 50% mortality in Chincua but observations suggest that Rosario was hit harder,” said Brower, referring to the El Rosario sanctuary, the preserve most often visited by tourists. The 50% number would mean 100 million butterflies took the hit–which still leaves us up over last year, just a disappointing and devastating turn of events, if true.

http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2016/03/31/scientists-try-to-assess-monarch-butterfly-mortality-after-mexican-freeze/

World Wildlife Fund Mexico in collaboration with SEMARNAT and CONANP and the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) announced the total forest area occupied by overwintering monarch colonies today in Mexico City. Nine colonies were located this winter season with a total area of 4.01 hectares: